After a Career in Computer Science, Cambodian Immigrant Focuses on Community

In 1978, after receiving a computer science degree from American University in Washington, D.C., Pasin Chanou knew that he could not return to his native Cambodia. Three years earlier, the Khmer Rouge had brutally gained power and threatened his family's gemstone business. His parents feared for their lives and fled to Thailand. “There was no hope of going back, and my father told me I needed to make a life in America,” he says. “I made up my mind to do whatever it would take to succeed here.”
By that time, a steady flow of Cambodian refugees had made their home in Long Beach. So Chanou...Read more ...